Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Alewife’s new meadows and reality, Cambridge, MA, USA

A very major part of the corrupt situation in Cambridge is for the Cambridge Machine constantly to express its love for what it is fighting to destroy.

The editor of the Cambridge Chronicle stopped publishing my letters after I refused to delete a comment in a proposed letter stating that the leader of the fake protective group at Alewife was fighting to destroy Alewife. Even worse, I pointed her to a letter in the Cambridge Chronicle from this person in which the person bragged about the first stage of destruction by the City of Cambridge and friends.

So the Chronicle has repeatedly printed fake “protective” letters yelling about private development at Alewife and censored letters objecting to ongoing efforts at public destruction at Alewife.

This is a very clear change in policy. The Cambridge Chronicle used to publish the City destruction supporting puff pieces but also allowed responsible comments in response at Alewife and elsewhere.

Now the Cambridge Chronicle just publishes the con games with their false and distorted presentation of reality. This amounts to lies of omission.

The corrupt behavior by the front organization supporting destruction on the Charles River is another excellent example. Repeated puff pieces amounting to fraud because of the “love” expressed while silent on the destruction supported have been published while censoring reality.

When the previous editor left, he mentioned he was leaving because of differences between him and the publisher. Could the allowance of the advanced but very real campaigns of fraud without allowing responses by responsible people be the difference he resigned over?

Last Thursday, July 18, the Cambridge Chronicle published an extended oped cooing over the replacement of the parking lot between route 2 and Alewife Station by allowing it to return to nature.

I proposed the following letter to the editor.

******************

Editor
Cambridge Chronicle

You printed praise for the meadow at Alewife created from a parking lot between route 2 and Alewife Station. The way things are being manipulated, it looks like all of the publicly owned woodlands at Alewife could become meadows.

I wrote the zoning petition which Sheila Cook led and which the owner of the former parking lot, Richard MacKinnon, credits for the return of meadow in place of parking. You have recently reported on the second of MacKinnon’s projects south of Cambridge ParkDrive. MacKinnon’s projects are being built with flood protection under them, but, had the City of Cambridge been behaving in a responsible manner, the flood protection would be much, much larger.

The Cambridge government should be negotiating with all developers around the Alewife reservation. Cambridge should be building large flood protection tanks under all new construction at city expense rather than accomplishing further destruction of irreplaceable woodlands.

The Machine, in the Chronicle, has praised the destruction of acres of woodlands for meadow conversion. That author has spent 15 years yelling at private developers and claiming to be defending Alewife. The machine says not to look at the need for flood control which is only going be resolved by destruction of the government owned Alewife reservation unless flood control tanks are built. That Machine letter praised the first destruction of Alewife woods. That destruction was supposedly for flood protection. That destruction will only protect against the worst possible storm in a two year period.

So the Machine tells us to look at Don Quixote fights against private developers and ignore the destructiveness of non action by their friends in government.

The Machine celebrated when Rich MacKinnon dedicated that parking lot for conversion back to open space. The Machine did not mention Sheila’s zoning which MacKinnon gives credit for the conversion.

The Machine does tell people not to look at the destruction of publicly owned Alewife for “flood protection” meadow which that Machine “leader” has bragged about. The Machine tells people not to look at the fact that flood protection should instead be placed under new construction as Rich has done under his two projects, but on a much, much larger scale.

The Machine and its City Council are stalling until all possible places for responsible flood control have been built upon. Then there will be “no choice” but to create a total “meadow” where an irreplaceable woodlands now stands.

About Me

Sponsored by Friends of the White Geese, Bob La Trémouille, chair/editor. Friends of the White Geese has worked since 2000 and has been a recognized Massachusetts, USA non-profit organization since 2001. Our goal is to defend the environment on the Charles River in Cambridge, MA, USA.